Uplift

It has happened two times in my life and yesterday was the third: walking to where you thought you parked your car and then not finding it. The previous two times was in Lebanon, a long time ago, and in both cases the car was stolen. But yesterday was in Cambridge and I had parked on a street cleaning day and the car was towed away. The fine and towing cost were over a hundred dollars, plus the nuisance. This was a rather downlifting experience – but richly compensated by more uplifting developments that preceded and followed it.

We spent the beginning of the weekend thinking long and hard about the coming year and came to the conclusion that we will hang around with me travelling a lot and Axel preparing himself to get the right credentials and experience for whatever will show up on the horizon next fall – likely another overseas assignment as a year of much travel will probably create some wear and tear and a desire to settle in one place for a while without losing income.

With the agony of what’s next put on the back burner we enjoyed a wonderful weekend. On Saturday we gained an entire new family that is marrying into Sita’s inlaws family. It was one of these unexpected joys of meeting people that one wished one had known all one’s life. We came together to celebrate the engagement of Jim’s brother, a graduation, a birthday and the marvel of a two month old baby. Only Sita was missing, on one of her jaunts in Europe.

Sunday we visited our grand dogs. We went for a very long walk in Gloucester’s Dogtown after a lunch served by Tessa in her doll house. I am practicing long walks in preparation for our trip to Holland, and (re)breaking in my hiking boots. It’s blister time.

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I brought Tessa some of the sheets of Japanese paper from the Tokyo Papierium (Ito-ya) – something her artist eye can appreciate. It is not clear what to do with them other than taking them out of their envelope and admiring them from time to time.

Yesterday I visited the rotator cuff doc to find out what’s up with all the trouble I am having with my right shoulder. His verdict was pretty obvious – too much heavy lifting. After two years of no lifting (women in Afghanistan don’t lift), the work around the house since I returned has irritated my shoulder. One of the four tendons that hold things in place hasn’t been functional since 2007. My right shoulder is effectively running on three cylinders – something that will not ever get better. So now I have a doctor’s note against any further heavy lifting. Axel, with his own rotator cuff issues, is having physical therapy like crazy so there is at least one of us who can lift stuff up. We are a sorry pair.

The final uplift of the last few days – entirely erasing the unpleasantness of having one’s car towed – was dinner at Pia’s where we celebrated everything that is to be celebrated in great company, great food and wine. Axel drove me home, this being my second trip in and out of Cambridge that day.